It's no secret that Shay Mitchell hits the gym hard. The actor frequently posts her impressive workouts on social media, and has previously told SELF that she genuinely enjoys working out and how it makes her feel. In a series of videos taken this past weekend at celeb fitness hotspot Dogpound in NYC, Mitchell powers through her latest workout, complete with sets of jump squats, lunges, and some impressive assisted pull-ups.

Pull-ups are one of those classic exercises that can feel out of reach (and we're not just talking about the actual pull-up bar). They are so incredibly challenging for many people. But Mitchell's resistance band variation is an excellent stepping stone to work your way up to the full thing.

Don't let the word "assisted" trick you—the banded version is still a tough move to master. "The band only helps a tiny bit..." she wrote on her Instagram story. But it is a great tool that trainers often suggest to help people work their way up.

Assisted pull-ups work the same muscles as full pull-ups while reducing how much weight you have to lift.

Just like a regular pull-up, assisted pull-ups work your back, shoulders, arms, and core. Looping a resistance band around your feet helps "take away" some of your bodyweight—because the band has the most tension in it at the bottom of the pull-up, it gives you a boost back up as it springs back to its normal state when you're lifting your chest toward the bar.

"[Using a resistance band is also] going to put your body accurately in alignment with what your body would be in when you're actually doing a pull-up," certified personal trainer Amelia DiDomenico, owner of Amrose Fitness Studio in West Hollywood, California, tells SELF. And if your goal is to nail a full pull-up, this is key. The thing about pull-ups is that the best way to learn how to do them is to actually attempt them—it's not just about how strong your muscles are.

Two more things that pull-ups require are "a lot of grip strength in your hands, and a lot of stability in your core," says DiDomenico. A stable core helps keep your lower body engaged during the pull-up, so your upper body doesn't have too lift up "dead weight"—think about it like trying to pick up a sleeping baby or a crying toddler that goes limp, explains DiDomenico. It's a lot harder when they're not engaged, and the same goes for lifting your own body during a pull-up.

Using a resistance band helps you work on both your grip strength and your core stability, so you're actually training your body in the way that it'll need to work during a real pull-up.

To try it yourself, you'll need a pull-up bar and a large resistance band to loop around it.

How you anchor your resistance band to the bar will depend on the type of setup you have. If it's a regular bar, toss the entire band over it, then pull one end of the band through the other end so that it's secure.

The harder your band is to stretch, the more assistance it'll give you. Just make sure it's not so heavy that it's skyrocketing you up—it shouldn't be doing all the work, says DiDomenico. "So if you're trying to build yourself up to be able to do a pull-up, you're going to slowly use a resistance band that has less and less resistance," she says.

If you don't have a long enough band to put your feet in, you can also bend your legs and put your knees through the band, so it's resting on your shins.

Once you're set up (it might take some playing around to find what feels comfortable to you), DiDomenico recommends working assisted pull-ups into your routine three times a week in three different ways—once with fewer reps and less assistance, once with more reps and more assistance, and once switching up the type of grip you use. This is a well-rounded approach that'll work your muscles in different ways to prepare you for the real thing, she explains.

Here's an example assisted pull-up plan:

Using a light resistance band, do 3 pull-ups, then rest for 1 minute.
Do 5 sets.

Using a heavier resistance band, do 8 pull-ups, then rest for 1
minute. Do 3 sets.

Using a medium-strength resistance band, do 6 pull-ups with a regular
grip (hands about shoulder-width apart, palms facing away from you), then rest for 1 minute. Do 6
chin-ups (gripping the bar with your palms facing you),
then rest for 1 minute. Repeat both, moving your hands further apart
for a wide grip this time. (That's 4 sets total.)

"Pull-ups are really challenging mentally, emotionally, and physically, so the biggest thing is building up a lot of grip strength and stability. Once you do that, you can add the reps [or use more challenging bands] as you go," says DiDomenico. Try this for six weeks, she says, then see if you can make things more challenging—maybe with no band at all.